Hydrogen has the potential to play an important role as a sustainable and environmentally acceptable energy carrier in the 21st century. Since natural sources of pure hydrogen are extremely limited, it is necessary to develop technologies to produce large quantities of hydrogen economically. The currently dominant technology for producing hydrogen is based on reforming fossil fuels, a process which releases greenhouse gases. Hydrogen produced by water cracking, using heat and surplus electricity from nuclear power plants, requires no fossil fuels and results in lower greenhouse gas emissions. This conference proceedings presents the state of the art in the nuclear production of hydrogen and describes its associated scientific and technical challenges.

Four thermochemical cycles were identified as potentially promising alternative cycles. Two were metal sulfate cycles and two were metal chloride cycles. All are hybrid cycles, i.e., they have an electrochemical step. These cycles were evaluated with a recently developed scoping flowsheet methodology to determine their maximum theoretical efficiency and their ability to function as a cycle.